Colleague Shelly Stallsmith might want to use her Leveling the Field blog to chime in on this topic of how the NCAA schedules its women's basketball tournament and when it's held.

Writer Mike Wise of the Washington Post wrote Monday that fewer than 3,000 fans attended the Maryland-Vanderbilt NCAA women's basketball tournament Sweet Sixteen game at the 19,722-seat RBC Center in Raleigh, N.C., on Saturday, and the crowd is a "damning indictment on the people who claim to love and promote the sport."

He blamed the "old heads at the NCAA, who really need to take a hard look at what communities care about women's basketball" and which do not. The NCAA needs to "stop the illusion of this ridiculous pod system that's supposed to encourage parity," he wrote. Until the Final Four, the NCAA should "award home court to the tournament's top seeds the first two rounds and give them the regionals to boot." The low attendance is because the "games aren't in the right cities." Wise: "Why even make the pretense these are neutral sites?"

Monday's Sports Business Daily also published opinions from other columnists on the issue, including Paul Zeise of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Zeise wrote that if the tournament was "played at truly neutral sites with no regards to geography, there would be a sharp drop-off in ticket sales." Even with the current setup, some host cities "have struggled to sell some tickets," which raises the question: "what is more important -- fairness or selling tickets?"

Jason Whitlock of FOXSPORTS.com took a completely different tack, offering his opinion that the women's tournament should be played in April rather than March, because playing at the same time as the men's tournament "undermines the growth of the women's game."

Women's college basketball "can be extremely popular if the people running the sport would allow the game to develop and revel in its own identity," and this will "only happen when the game is moved from the shadow of the men's game," he wrote. Given the "economic woes of the media," outlets "can no longer afford to be politically correct and expend resources on events that don't warrant coverage based on genuine fan interest."

Sending reporters to "empty arenas to cover the women's tournament is no longer a priority." But in terms of media coverage and TV ratings, "playing in April would be a gigantic winner for the women." The sport would garner "lots of coverage and conversation," and fans "will embrace women's college hoops if the idiots would just give us a chance."

Agree? Disagree? Does it make that much of a difference when they play the tournament? And what would you do, start the season three weeks later than you are now?

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